Referring to FIG. 1, a diagram illustrates an exemplary missile 10 with known vulnerability of radial (side) impacts attributed to environmental unplanned stimuli and combat hazards such as stray bullets and fragments. The missile 10 includes a fin 12, a propulsion section 14, a control section 16, an armament (warhead) section 18, and a guidance section 20. Additionally, the armament (warhead) section of some ordnance is susceptible to premature detonation from operating conditions such as axial launch setback loads and weapon penetration failure modes.
A detonation is, by definition, a wave that propagates “ignition” from one point to the next, not a bulk process that uniformly acts on the high explosive material. Conventional plastic bonded high explosives (PBX) used in the (warhead) section 18, typically consist of homogeneously distributed solid energetic ingredients in a mitigating polymeric binder system. Established detonations in supercritical PBX charges can fail dynamically, for example when negotiating a divergent geometry. Dynamic failures are observed in converging conical charges, where a detonation initiated in the cylindrical section of the charge with a supercritical diameter may fail as it traverses a tapered section falling below the critical diameter of the explosive. Further, a steady detonation wave in an explosive can develop a region of zero or partial reaction (a dead zone) as it turns around a sharp corner. Thus, the spatial distribution of the energetic materials can make a huge difference on the behavior of the explosive.